​One challenge with being a cannabis consumer in a society that has for decades been trained to be pot-phobic -- to the point of irrational, superstitious fear -- is that you constantly run into the same tired negative stereotypes, the same ignorant assumptions, and the same shared blame game.

"Shared blame," you ask? Yeah. I mean the kind that seems to make it a law of nature that when some psycho loser, somewhere, does something horrific or stupid, then it turns out he tokes? Suddenly the entire marijuana community is suspect, at least according to the corporate tools who are responsible for most of the news you read.

Today's exercise in shared blame comes courtesy of loser Illinois teen John Granat, 17, who allegedly bludgeoned his mom and dad to death in their bed Sunday morning. According to press reports, this fucked-up shitbag of an excuse for a human being killed John and Maria Granat, 44 and 42 respectively, allegedly because they had caught him growing marijuana at home, and had then thrown his plants away.

Now, killers are killers, and potheads are potheads; there's usually very little overlap between the two groups, except the occasional self-medicating psychotic like little John here, whose demons finally overpowered him and made him do something deeply cruel and stupid.

But what, exactly, does that have to do with the marijuana-using public at large? Nothing whatsoever. It just means that when you piss off a psycho killer, people get killed -- whether or not the psycho killer smokes pot.

John, 44, and Maria Granat, 42, were found beaten to death in their bedroom

​In any event, father John and mother Maria were bludgeoned to death in their bed early Sunday morning in the upscale Chicago suburb of Palos Park. Young John had already made multiple threats to kill his parents, according to the boy's friends, police said.

According to prosecutors, the father, who was found on the floor, had his kidney lacerated, his jaw broken and his teeth knocked out, while the mother had been stabbed repeatedly until she died.

"When you entered (the bedroom) it was almost entering another world," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart told the Tribune. "From the nature of the wounds and the nature of the blood, there was a lot of violence in that room."

Young John himself called the police to report the murder of his parents in their Chicago-area home. He at first claimed that he'd been sleeping in the basement and discovered the bodies of his parents when he went upstairs upon waking up.

But investigators said there were no signs of forced entry, and they found John giving them misleading accounts. The boy told them he'd been home all night, but Palos Heights police records showed he'd been stopped at 5:17 a.m. for a broken tail light, reports Andy Grimm of the Chicago Tribune.

According to the officer who pulled the teen over, Granat had a bottle of bleach -- "pool chlorine in a plastic bottle" -- and $4,000 in cash inside the car. He told investigators he'd been out with friends, but none of the friends he named told police they'd seen him after 6 p.m. on Sunday.

"[Granat] gave numerous stories, one after the other, including alibis," said Sheriff Dart."None of which made any sense, none of which turned out to be true."

Dart said the father's wallet was found on the kitchen counter with $1,800 in it, and other valuables had been left untouched.

Granat is being held at Cermak Hospital in the Cook County Jail, where he is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation, according to sheriff's officials.

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" It just means that when you piss off a psycho killer, people get killed -- whether or not the psycho killer smokes pot" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Or, it just means: parents don't steal your kids shit, even more so if it is very expensive. You never know what might happen.

Pot is not evil.. If used responsibly it can be as a medicine..
John G. was the one responsible.. The next thing you going to tell us that T.V. And video games were responsible for the murders...
John G. There had to be some warning signs that people over looked.. Like the death threats..

A lot of crazy, evil people smoked marijuana. John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez. There was a violent criminal organization in old India called The Thugees who smoked hashish and then went out to kill people for hire, or steal and kill all witnesses violently. I have on rare occasion been angry or frustrated at something and exploded.
The other thing is to call these bath salt substances synthetic marijuna. If it isn't pot, it isn't pot. Don't call it pot when it isn't, it is some shit made in a lab that used to be legal before Big Brother stepped on it.

yeah he looks like a bitch. see this is not a product of mary jane its a product of spare the rod spoil the child this is what happens these kids think that they can do anything beause human resourse says the can

Everyone has problems, and everyone has a darkside. I know this better than most. I have seen what happens when you buy into what the government tells you is right, and wrong. People die... Good people that have the best of intentions. I have mental illnesses too, but I learned to live with them. This kid was a classic case of a sociopath who lacks empathy. The drugs had nothing to do with it although there is a good chance that he was abused in some way which led to his detachment disorder. YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT ASSUMPTIONS THOUGH RIGHT?

I like to read how the progress (or lack of) of legalizing pot is moving along. I don't smoke pot and never have. I am a senior brought up very conservativly so there was a time in my life when I also had the knee jerk reaction to the "evils of pot". However, time and observation have shown me that #1 there a lot of pot smokers out there and #2 thay are all nice or nasty according to their individual selves. Pot doesn't seem to make a difference. Now as to the writer of this article. I don't see a reason to post a report with foul language. Is your vocabulary so short you cannot find express yourself sufficiently with out using ugly words. If you are going to write publicly. Educate yourself.

"Wow," that's #^%^&* amazing. I don't smoke Maryjouana, no affiance to the pot smokers of the world
I do believe Marijuana does have medical applications, I just read an article about THC killing Cancer cells. I do believe that Marijuana, and what this nut did, is as close as a sun rise and a sun set. This kid has some real problems, not associated with pot. I believe this kid was probably very spoiled, and was never denied anything in his life, the first time they say no to him, he can't understand the concept of the word no. So he freaks out on his parents. I believe he was showing them his version of what no means to him. I have a theory that we as a people have a tendency to misuse and abuse our freedom almost every minute of the day, on a daly bases. Anytime that freedom is threatened for more than a couple of minutes, people will start getting very uncomfortable. Very quickly. final theory to much freedom. We have a excessive amount of freedom. Freedom to do what ever we want when we want. We even have the freedom to kill, If we so chose to.

I am sorry to hear this. parents need to understand when they are being threatened, accept what you are seeing and protect yourself. this is so sad. perhaps if they did not throw out the weed they may still be alive. sounds like this kid needed the weed to keep him calm and non-violent.

Lord this is so very sad.... Kids killing their own parents for any reason is damn sad... Lord have mercy on his soul. Let him live the rest of his life knowing what he did to his parents. Don't blame drugs for this. He is a selfish little boy. If he had any respect for his parents instead of threatening to kill them all the damn time why not move out grow your pot and live your own life. True meaning of a selfish bastard.

i believe you mean 'safe' drug.......I too smoked pot and ingested various drugs till I was 55.Marijuana was first drug drug I used.I have depression and memory problems but I am 60 and drug/alcohol free and have a B.Phil. degree.......Not smart enough to have stayed off of drugs.I majored in Philosophy..........

FUCK time i want to smoke the hell out of weed legally some dumb ass is doing something to make us look bad weed is not bad for you in fact it actually save me from a couple off life ending thing lol cant really give that info but take my word for truth

there are plenty of reasons to have 4000 come bitch when he has 40000 cash. not many good reasons for that much. he could have been buying a used car i had to have about that much one time. but then again pretty early.

i don't know how you could blame the parents for their own death,,,obviously they "child" was over indulged and had everything he could want,,but the fact that he turned out to be a pot head murderer has no baring on the parents,,,he could be mentally ill,,which again is a brain disease , not from the parents,,,he sounds like a bad seed,,,unless you have a child with a mental disorder,,you should not assume the parents are to blame,,

This kid is a nut case plain and simple. His parents no matter how they raised him did not teach him to kill. Anyone who kills has a screw loose and needs to be locked up forever. Society can,t have a killer walking around with a mind to kill as soon as they cannot have their way, or do not agree with the laws of the land. There is no excuse anyone can give if they take another life except in self defense, and thats the bottom line.

you can raise your kids to be the best, but once they get a certain age they have a mind of their own.you just have to pray that they take you advice and make the right choices.no parent never knows how their child will turn out...

caleb writes: Nowhere, not even on the shit-ball news sites that I've never heard of, did any of the writer/reporters make reference to the pot-plant incident being the cause. Not once. And the pot-plant incident was not even mentioned on any real new sites such as NBC or the Chicago Times.

Here is your smoking gun from www.myfoxchicago.com in plain black and white:Police believe the violent attack awakened Granat’s father, the source said. But the elder Granat “didn’t have much of a chance,” the source said. “It (the attack) was very brutal.” The younger Granat apparently was angry because his father had destroyed marijuana plants the teen was growing in the home, the source said. “It was a falling out over that,” the source said. Another source close to the investigation confirmed the confrontation over the marijuana plants, but said it took place several days earlier. Police said Granat had threatened his parents’ lives before the slaying.

Now that I hope I've set the record straight for all parties concerned, what intrigues me about this case is the brutality and violence involved. Was this kid on some prescription drugs as others have alluded to or performance enhancing steroids as this article on Fox seems to suggest? Fox made no attempt to demonize cannabis as reader Leigh ignorantly tried to do on this thread because her comments show a total lack of scientific knowledge, research studies, etc. This callous murder has NOTHING to do with cannabis. Cannabis users are NOT prone to violence contrary to "Reefer Madness" smear propaganda and myths. In fact, Nixon placed cannabis on Controlled Substance Schedule I list so he could lock up as many pot smokers and war dissenters as possible since they made such poor soldiers due to their pacifism. This represented a 180 degree about face for the government since it had spent the previous 30 years trying to associate cannabis use with violence and murder. In was plain to see that most hippies had no interest in going to Asia and murdering Vietnamese peasants. So much for that failed strategy!Now what intrigues me about this story from a mental health professional perspective is the lack of empathy and cold blooded murder that took place. Cannabis plants getting discarded was just a trigger for a deeper underlying psychopathology. I am intrigued to know this child's prior history of violence, if any. Was he on steroids or other prescription drugs? Any prior mental illness history? Prior anger management issues? Prior history of physical or sexual abuse? SOMETHING led to this child's violent temper and murder impulses and cannabis is essentially unrelated to the murder. The plants being thrown away was just a trigger, but it could have been anything! Maybe he was just bullied at school? Maybe his girlfriend just broke up with him? Maybe he was having a bad drug interaction problem with any number of possible substances? One thing is clear! This is NOT normal behavior and is relatively rare. Thank God this child is receiving a psychiatric evaluation. Maybe he has toxic lead poisoning? Lead makes persons aggressive. Maybe he has PTSD or traumatic brain injury? We do NOT have enough data to form any succinct conclusion at this point. Although it is easy to judge this child, a rush to judgement is counterproductive until we have all the facts. If indeed this child was physically abused or has lead toxicity is it fair for any of us to cast such harsh blame on this child when he may be indeed a victim too? This to me is what makes forensic psychiatry so fascinating and interesting!

So, I was looking around online, and all I was able to find on-line was that a few weeks prior to the murders, the kid's parents had found some pot plants that he was growing, threw them away, and so the kid threatened to kill them, and subsequently told some friends that he was going to kill them.

Nowhere, not even on the shit-ball news sites that I've never heard of, did any of the writer/reporters make reference to the pot-plant incident being the cause. Not once. And the pot-plant incident was not even mentioned on any real new sites such as NBC or the Chicago Times.

No one even attempted to make the connection. They were simply stating facts. They could just have well been saying "the kids parents caught him speeding and took away his car, so he threatened to kill them" or "the kid flunked math, so his folks took away his PS3, so he threatened to kill him". Not anywhere did I find even an inkling of correlatory subtext.

In fact, the only place I did find said correlation was Toke of the Town. Did the guy who wrote this article just do a google search, read the first three links that came up, and fly into a passionate rage? Was there any research at all done? I kind of like Toke of the Town, but time and time again I come across inaccuracy and just plain irresponsibility. Such as taking the tragic story of a sick kid who killed his parents and using it to soap-box about how it's bad to blame pot for a sick kid's actions, when that was NEVER DONE. If it had been, I would agree, that's total b.s., but guess what, never happened.

Maybe, Mr. Elliot, you should lay off the bong rips till AFTER you've written your articles. No one anywhere said that Granat killed his parents BECAUSE they took away his pot plants. Once again, for the cheap seats, NO ONE SAID THAT. All anyone said was that he threatened to do so after they took away his plants. Which is a statement of fact, which is what reporting the news should be about, Mr. Elliot. You're the only, Mr. Elliot, to have taken that connection and run with it, as though someone did actually blame weed. But no one did. Maybe you should switch to Indica, cut down on the paranoia.

Please, Toke, stop running these lame articles, fire these lamentably sub-par writers, and grow into a pro-cannabis news site of note. Schlock like this is a step in the wrong direction.

With all due respect, I feel that your publication would have alot more credibility if your writers attempted to maintain some modicum of objectivity. I mean, obviously, everyone associated with Toke of the Town is pro-cannabis, so I guess my suggestion is a little silly, but I'm not saying that the writers need to be as objective as a national news reporter (and, yes, I am aware that "objective reporting" is fast becoming an oxymoron), but maybe, just maybe, you all would get your point(s) across a little better is you refrained from phrases like "fucked up shit-bag of a human being," and things along those lines.

I'm pro-cannabis, pro-legalization, and manage a dispensary in San Francisco, California, and I use Toke as a news source, and post alot of your stories at my dispensaries various social media sites. I like your site. I just cringe, sometimes, when I read a story that sounds like it was written by an angry high-schooler, and it makes me hesitate to promote your site. I'm sure that, for instance, someone like the gentleman/woman who wrote the article about the kid who beat his kids to death was going for a Matt Taibi-esque spin on the story, but Taibi has skills, data and references, and rarely, if ever, obscures the point with editorializing. Which is wild, because that's all he does, is editorialize, but he does so in a classy, well-thought-out, and evenly presented way. The result is, when I read something like that, I don't question the veracity, even if he swears or is otherwise vulgar. With Toke, however, I find myself who's running the show, who the hell writes some of these articles, and if I'm alone in wanting the world to have a good opinion of pot culture as a result of the minds and mouths that represent the culture putting their best feet forward. Maybe dial it down a notch?

All I can say is that the teenagers will easily get involved in all these activities. Thus it become really dangerous to them to stop the addiction of marijuana. The strong care should be taken to keep teenagers far from this poison. I have searched in many other sites about the symptoms and treatments of addiction where i found that 70% of the addiction by marijuana is easily acceptable in teenager. I liked your post. Thanks for sharing.

this was obviously the result of the combination of influences from bad parenting, mental illness, and retarded faggy pothead friends. Sorry bout it but if you smoke pot you don't got your shit straight no matter how you see yourself. Thanks for supporting the marijuana cartels assholes.

@in_the_know Shut the fuck up. It's not the victims fault you dumbass. He was growing Marijuana in their house - that they paid for. So because they didn't want to be co-conspirators - they're somehow to blame? Is it because they opted to throw out the drugs - instead of calling the cops? Give me a break.

heres a thought make it regulated. grow it in the us. provides jobs for AMERICANS.... cuts off the cartels. less money spent on fighting it. money coming in from taxes. and a record of everyone who uses. seems pretty obvious to me